Re: managing preferred networks

[Derek Atkins <warlord MIT EDU>]

I think a "manage prefered networks" dialog would be a good idea.
This way you could even order them and create a priority within the
preferred list.  E.g., I always prefer "foo-a" over "foo" (I have
two networks at home) because I prefer 802.11(a) over 802.11(b/g).

-derek

PS: On a related note: it would be nice if NM could realize that
there's a difference between an (a) and a (b/g) network even when they
both have the same SSID.  Last week at the IETF they had used the same
SSID for the (a) and (b/g) networks, so I had to specifically tell my
atheros card to prefer the (a) network -- but that failed when I was
in the one area that ONLY had b/g...  Unfortunately NM doesn't really
handle this situation.  :(

Colin Walters <walters verbum org> writes:

> So a while back apparently Comcast was down in my area, but I didn't
> know that, so I kept trying a bunch of different wireless networks
> instead of the one I normally use.  I successfully associated with most
> of them, but of course internet access didn't work (so I then tried
> another, until I figured out that the Internet was broken in general).
>
> The result is that all of them are in my preferred networks list, and it
> seems kind of random which one NetworkManager chooses to associate with
> when I get home and unsuspend my laptop.  The problem is that some of
> them are slower or nonfunctional altogether.
>
> I'd like a way to tell NM that those networks are crap, forget about
> them.  I guess I could use gconf-editor...but presumably we want a real
> way to handle this situation?
>
> One possible approach would be to have a fullblown dialog/window appear
> when you click on the icon instead of the menu.  The dialog would have a
> button like "Remove" for the preferred list.
>
> Somewhat related - we should probably differentiate preferred networks
> somehow in the dropdown list as it is now too.  This would be essential
> for the dialog too.
>
> Thinking about this a bit more, maybe another alternative is to have an
> internal "priority" for networks (does this already exist?).  If I
> choose a different network immediately (say 10 seconds) after NM
> associates with one in my preferred list, the priority of the previously
> chosen one drops.  If I do this enough, maybe it drops off the preferred
> list altogether.
>
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-- 
       Derek Atkins, SB '93 MIT EE, SM '95 MIT Media Laboratory
       Member, MIT Student Information Processing Board  (SIPB)
       URL: http://web.mit.edu/warlord/    PP-ASEL-IA     N1NWH
       warlord MIT EDU                        PGP key available